


The Spider and the Rose

by dragonofeternal



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - World War I, F/F, Found Poetry, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-02
Updated: 2012-07-02
Packaged: 2017-11-09 01:20:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/449671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonofeternal/pseuds/dragonofeternal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two girls meet to change the course of history.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Spider and the Rose

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for bonus round 1 of the 2012 Homestuck Shipping Olympics, this piece sought to blend the genres of alternate history (in this case, the early days of World War One) and found poetry, a genre of poetry that takes snippets of text from non-poetry sources and re-imagines them in a fresh context.

The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone  
for  
the Rose grows best in full sun to partial shade.  
I reach for my camera and focus on the light.  
There lay a young girl, spilled into a heap between light and shadow. She was naked, and her skin was the color of snow by moonlight. Her hair, as white as a waterfall. The white girl watched out of the unicorn's clear, amaranthine eyes-gentle and frightening in the unused face- but she said nothing.  
I take the picture.

There is much to be said for a German Europe. She had emerged the as the strongest Power in 1871, when, under Chancellor Bismarck, she had defeated France, and she had gone far ahead. By 1914, Berlin was the Athens of the world, a place where you went to learn anything important- physics, philosophy, music, engineering...  
The wicked Spider, the mean trickster, prankster, and witch doctor, wanted   
to indulge in unnatural vices and drove her car about at high speed.   
The spider was a woman, and  
The woman held the pale girls head in her lap.

What is better than the friendship between two girls?  
Mustachioed womanizer  
Falkenhayn had to consider much more than the east.  
And these “friends”   
Two battleships  
Two months of maneuvering  
How should Germany, her resources only now being properly mobilized, respond?  
He drives downtown,  
he wants it now, he'll take it.  
He takes the girls home.

Twenty minutes later,   
a spider emerges  
she washes her hands  
Then, in one motion,   
the rose-white girl was on her feet  
and pulls on her underwear.  
She looks around, double-checking.  
The bones are gone,   
tucked beneath his shredded  
clothes in the trash  
and the floor is licked Ajax clean.  
Maybe someone will notice later,   
but probably not.  
On 21 February 1916 German General Erich von Falkenhayn unleashed his hammer-blow offensive against the French fortress city of Verdun.   
Now he is  
today's garbage  
dragged out by two girls with a smile on their lips.

**Author's Note:**

> Texts used:  
> The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle  
> Missing Angel Juan by Francesca Lia Block  
> World War One: A Short History by Norman Stone  
> Rose varieties  
> Myths of the Native Americas  
> Bright Young People by D.J. Tyler


End file.
